Alphabetical Africa (New Directions Books)

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What a bizarre book. I mean, you know going in that a book with this format is going to be bizarre, but it’s even more bizarre than it had to be. Both species of gorilla are critically endangered. Sadly, poaching has been identified as the main cause of the continued decline of both species. The common warthog is widespread throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. It lives in grassland, savanna and woodland habitats. Alphabetical Africa" has a sort of humor I recognize in other authors of the 1970s. He is interested in Africa's politics ("But can Alva's claims also cure Americans bombing Chad beaches. Anyhow, all concur America's angst cannot corrupt Chadians," p. 6), in the absurdity of the places he visits, and in the ridiculous continuation of colonia

Africa's mind is justifiably obstinate about its dislike of all foreign occupation of its land. -- p37 The novel is not a post-colonial commentary on the state of the continent -- or at least that is not its primary focus. Zambia– This country is increasing in popularity because of conservation efforts, improvement in its economy and infrastructure, and its beautiful 20 national parks.

The sentences themselves are impressively comprehensible. For example, in a chapter allowing only words beginning with A, B, and C, the author (who only becomes a character once the letter “I” is introduced, for obvious reasons) has been kidnapped by ants. ”Am appeasing ants by being awfully appreciative about bench and bedding, and also by appearing appropriately apologetic.” About a thousand languages are spoken on the continent, divided into four (or six) major language families: The horn-like projections on the head of a male okapi are called ossicones. (Unlike the giraffe, in which both male and females have ossicones, they are only present on the male okapi.)

Some narrative quirks arise from this: the book is a first person narrative, but the narrator cannot make an appearance until chapter I, and then must disappear after the second chapter I (though Abish finds a way to allude to the first person narrative in the closing chapters). Of course, the word "the" can only be used between the two chapter T's (a limitation Perec and his translator both wrestled with in "A Void" - though of course Perec did have the feminine singular form available). Bushbabies are also known as Galagos or Nagapies (which means ‘little night monkeys’ in Afrikaans, a language spoken in South Africa). Their English name is thought to come either from their baby-like appearance, or from the wails they make at night. He has written several works of fiction, and taught at Columbia, Yale, Brown, and Cooper Union, among others. Updated] See now also Stephen Saperstein Frug's more thorough list of errata at his Attempts weblog.It is assumed that supercontinents have arranged and broken apart multiple times in Earth's geologic past. The fact that he fails a few times is particularly worrisome -- how could that happen ? or did it happen for a reason ?) Despite its name, the aardwolf is not a wolf or even a member of the dog family. In fact, it’s one of the four living species of hyena, and a member of the hyena family Hyaenidae. As the book progresses and the number of permissible words grows, he finds: "I can speak more freely. Desert locust swarms can cover an area of 460 square miles (1,200 km2), and contain up to 100 billion insects! These crop-destroying insect clouds can move at up to 124 miles (200 km) in a day.